Thursday, August 20, 2009

JA from MNPP here again, interjecting once more while Nat's making like a worker-bee doing the things a worker-bee does (i.e. work). I just thought y'all might wanna chat here about that Avatar trailer that everybody's buzzing about today, so if ya do, make with the comments. I took a slew of screen-grabs from it over here if you wanna see it in still form. But what do we think?

The reactions I'm hearing are all over the map, from let-down to ebullient. Yes, ebullient. Don't get to use that word often enough, ebullient. Anyway. You?.

And I had no idea there was no talking in the trailer! Whenever I watch these things while at work I have to do so without sound on, so it's nice to know I wasn't missing out on any annoying voice-over in my first couple of viewings.

Like I said in my post at MNPP, I'm still psyched for the movie but do feel as if my expectations have now settled down into realistic territory.

Ha. JA you beat me to it, I too am watching it without sound, but that's because the sound drivers are gone from my computer. I'm still anxious. My feelings haven't changed upon seeing the trailer. But that's good. I'm sure it'll be good.

It didn't impress me. The aliens look like human smurfs. Besides even if the CGI looked realistic,which it didn't really, I need more like a story to make interested. I'm probably not gonna see this in theaters.

'm not sure. I feel I have seen this before (Beowulf, Final Fantasy, Phantom Menace.) These blue things don't look at all interesting to me. Too video gamish. The creatures seem badly designed and it looks to me as if there's too much visual cacophony.

Okay, I just gt home and watched it with sound and also I'm realizing that this is the first time I watched it without pausing it every couple of seconds to grab a frame, just letting it play straight through, and it played much better for me this time. The movement of the aliens looked better to me even, and I really liked the sound of it - the escalating drumbeat, no words. I am much more happy with it this time than the first couple.

No clue what to really make of this myself. It can be hard to separate the hype at this moment, which is too high. All that will melt away if the narrative comes together, which two minutes like this will never do.

I have faith Cameron will make a good movie, but if his name wasn't attached to this, I'd be ho-hum.

Honestly, I felt underwhelmed at first view of the trailer. The art direction, cinematography, and visual effects look spectacular. But I hoped there would be more pow similar to the terror of ALIENS, the action of T2: JUDGMENT DAY, and the inescapable magnitude of TITANIC. Maybe it's a good thing the trailer isn't that grasping. There's probably too many extraordinary scenes to highlight in one trailer.

Also, I really wanted to catch a glimpse of Sigourney Weaver. I wanted an image to reminisce of her in ALIENS. It's happening anyways (;

I'm still super excited. The trailer doesn't look spectacular, but, bear in mind that we are watching it on a tiny computer screen and not the five story IMAX screen that this beast is meant to be seen on. Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere says it's not a good representation of the special effects wizardry, and he was blown away by the footage at ComicCon. We will see...

The teaser here doesn't go anywhere near the ability of getting its message across as it would on the big screen.

Having been to the "Avatar Day" preview, I can say that the footage I saw was STUNNING. The effects are truly outstanding. The colours are like... well, I don't think I have ever seen colours like that on screen before. The 3D is quite great too although moreso during the live action sequences.

Ryan, we see her in human form for a scene and then she goes to Pandora (the planet) in her avatar but after the Sam Worthington character gets chased away by one of those giant creatures you see in the trailer we don't get to see her again. I'm sure she comes back at some stage to do battle.

3D hurts my eyes, so I'm not looking forward to being forced to only see this in 3D. Oh well. The visuals in the teaser are stunning, but I have no idea what the hell I just saw or what it's all about. I guess that's a good thing at this point. I hope that this tempers people's expectations though, b/c they were unrealistic to start with. "Avatar" isn't going to cure cancer or bring about world peace, so calm it down with the hype already. It'll be what it'll be. I don't blame James Cameron for that. That I blame the fanboys. But the teaser has done its job and got me interested. I was hoping for more Sigourney too.

Does anyone besides me remember that Titanic was not a good movie? Why so much hope for this? Those aliens look kinda bad and the CGI looks confusing, blurry, like they're packing too much in. I don't have much hope for the story and the acting and I have no interest in Sigourney so... seems this movie is not for me. Oh, and besides, I think 3D is a rather gimmicky device that never adds anything exciting to a movie viewing for me.

I'm not really the target audience for Avatar. That said, I'm interested to see what Cameron's been spending all his time on, and I feel completely underwhelmed by it.

It didn't make me want to see it at all. And I think for viewers who are not into Sci-Fi (or whatever it is) it has little to it that'll excite, based on the trailer. But I'm still hopeful, I'm sure James Cameron knows what he's doing! Even if his trailer-makers don't.